Hamilton's Cargo Express

MOUNT
HOPE, ONT — Much as Chicago has Midway Airport and Dallas has Love
Field, Toronto — one of the largest metro areas in North America
— now has Hamilton International Airport. It has quickly become the
major freight airport in Canada, and is experiencing rapid passenger growth
with the successful emergence of Westjet, a discount carrier. The turnaround
of a once quiet, provincial airport is directly linked to a decision to
turn the facility into private hands in the early ’90s.

Tony F. Battaglia is president and CEO
of TradePort International Corporation, a consortium of companies created
to respond to a request for proposals for privatizing the airport, which
TradePort subsequently won. It took over operation and ownership of the
airport in 1996 under a 45-year lease agreement.
Explains Battaglia, "This airport was
always considered a loser, something that was there. There was no community
support, and it didn’t register on anybody’s radar screen as
a potential economic development tool. But since the privatization and
repositioning of the airport, we’ve done an awareness campaign.

"Today, the city council views the
airport as the region’s number one economic tool for the future of
the community. We’ve gone from nowhere on the radar screen to the
number one most important community asset.
"We’re sort of reminding everybody
that the reason Hamilton became an industrial center in the first place,
why the steel mills first located here, was because of its geographic
location. Today, we’re seeing that come around full circle, that
the tremendous advantage this community has is as a transportation and
distribution hub, especially in the world of e-commerce.
"Everybody’s fighting to be the
next Silicon Valley; we want to be the e-fulfillment center."
Repositioning, recalls Battaglia, focused
on redirecting the airport from one with minimal passenger service (U.S.
Airways to Pittsburgh, recently terminated) to one that focused on specialty
cargo. "The fact that we have no operating restrictions here, we
operate 24 hours a day, and given our proximity to Toronto, which does
have operating restrictions at night, we have a strategic advantage,"
he explains. "It’s something that was never fully exploited
or understood."
Another strategic advantage, says Battaglia,
is that Hamilton has a potential catchment area for cargo and passengers
that is larger than that of New York City. "If you draw a circle
around Hamilton encompassing a one-day truck drive, you can reach anywhere
from Montreal to New York to Chicago," he explains. "We have
132 million consumers within that circle; New York has only 120 million.
And, from a transportation point of view, once it’s on the ground
we’re in a more convenient location. We’re in the middle of
New York and Chicago.
"That’s why the focus is on cargo,
in terms of economic development for the community. Cargo will create
the economic development. The passenger development will certainly make
the airport grow, and from a revenue point of view may outstrip the cargo
business."
One other advantage Hamilton has, says Battaglia,
is the value of the Canadian dollar versus the U.S. dollar. People moving
freight can save money by shipping via Hamilton International and then
trucking to the States, he says. "That’s a tremendous savings
for many of the companies," he says.
Toward the goal of integrated services,
the federal government is currently funding construction of a spur to
the airport off the main highway system that connects Hamilton to entries
to the U.S. Construction is set for completion in 2003.

A need for Capital, Airport Management
According to Battaglia, the airport was
operated by the city of Hamilton through an operating agreement with Transport
Canada, which later divested itself of the facility to the city, concurrent
with the privatization effort.
Transport Canada is in the final stages
of a national plan to divest the federal government of the nation’s
airports, which it had owned. The federal government is maintaining ownership
of the 26 top tier airports, which it has transferred in most cases to
operating airport authorities under local control and long-term leases.
Hamilton is a second tier airport. Explains TradePort vice president of
finance Paul J. Tice, "We are bigger than probably 20 of the 28 national
airports."
The city is now the owner of the John C.
Munro Hamilton International Airport, named for a local legislator/federal
minister. According to Battaglia, the city had little success during its
tenure operating the facility, largely because there was no money for
necessary infrastructure development.
"They were losing in the neighborhood
of half a million to a million dollars a year, which was being funded
by Transport Canada," recalls Battaglia. "There were certainly
no funds available for any expansion or capital improvements, so they
decided when they accepted the transfer (of ownership) of the airport
that they would privatize the operation."
That led to TradePort entering a 45-year
lease agreement to act as owner, developer, and manager — all with
the target of making a profit.
Tice and Battaglia say that the airport’s
annual operating budget went into the black for the first time in 1999.
Unlike most airport operators, TradePort does not open its books, not
even to the city, says Tice. In lieu of its infrastructure investments,
TradePort does not have to pay any rent fees through 2006, at which time
a percentage of revenues begins. "The city was willing to be patient,"
explains Battaglia.
Battaglia, who organized the consortium
via Westpark Developments and whose background was in real estate development,
spearheads the airport’s privatization and development initiatives.
Management of the airport falls to YVR Vancouver Airport Services, one
the TradePort partners which got its feet wet with the airport privatization
effort in Vancouver. The third partner in TradePort is the Labourers International
Union of North America (LIUNA).

Rates & ChargesUPS, Federal Express, and Purolator are three of
the major cargo players at Hamilton International Airport, where cargo
remains the number one economic development target.

One of TradePort’s initial moves after
taking over the airport was to review fees paid by tenants and users.
As with many airports operated under Transport Canada, say Tice and Battaglia,
Hamilton International had a complex fee structure that was in need of
simplification and updating. In particular, explains Battaglia, fees needed
to be increased to be able to afford making the necessary capital investments.
"Transport Canada didn’t have
the funding required to make the capital improvements on the airport,"
he says. "A glaring example is the main runway, which we identified
from the beginning as its major deficiency in attracting the international
cargo business. It was only 8,000 feet long and could not provide trans-Atlantic
capacities for a fully loaded aircraft."
Adds Tice, "So, we undertook to extend
the runway (to 10,000 feet) and arranged the financing. We paid for all
of it and the lighting upgrade.
"Clearly, in this business, the airlines
are not going to come if the infrastructure is not there. In order to
pay for that investment, the rates and charges had to go up, but not to
the point that the carriers were opposed to it."
Tice calls Transport Canada’s fee structure
"disaggregated" and inadequate, requiring TradePort to play
catch-up in bringing in enough revenues to maintain what was in place
on the airfield, and then to create dollars for expansion.
"The first thing we did was get rid
of the Transport Canada fee structure," says Tice, "which is
something most Canadian airports have done. It has simplified things greatly."
Tice says that today the aircraft fees,
set to be reviewed in 2002, are based on weight and whether a flight is
domestic or international. For domestic flights, the fee begins at $15
(Canadian) per metric ton; for international, $20 per metric ton.
"Transport Canada had over a dozen
rates depending on the weight of the aircraft," recalls Tice. "It
had 15 categories for terminal fees depending on the seats in the aircraft.
All of that had to disappear."
Regarding other users, general aviation
light aircraft are charged a flat $25 landing fee, while larger corporate
aircraft pay the weight-based fee. There is no fuel flowage fee, and fixed
base operators and other airport tenants pay ground rent only, according
to Battaglia and Tice.

Passenger Service
While cargo was clearly identified early
on as the ripe opportunity for TradePort, the success of domestic carrier
WestJet Airlines has the airport quickly refurbishing and expanding the
terminal and parking facilities to meet the increasing demand. This year,
WestJet projects it will move 450,000 passengers through the Hamilton
terminal. "They’re halfway there and I don’t see any reason
why they’re not going to make it," comments managing director
Richard Webb. The 55-year old director spent most of his career with Canadian
Airlines internationally.

Award Winning Effort
Each year, the Ministries of Municipal Affairs
& Housing and of Education & Training recognize innovative approaches
to providing and paying for public services and utilities. In 1997, the
competitive bidding process used by Hamilton International Airport in
its privatization initiative with TradePort International was so honored.